The United States has recorded nearly 1,200 deaths from COVID-19 in just 24 hours — the worst daily death toll for any country since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Nationwide, over 6,000 people have died, with more than 1,500 COVID-19 deaths in New York City alone. Medical workers who’ve been forced to work shifts of up to 16 hours report chaotic scenes of patients overflowing out of hospitals that have run out of beds, with bodies quickly filling refrigerated trucks serving as makeshift morgues.
At the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, doctors and nurses wearing surgical masks and scarves held a demonstration Thursday to protest a critical lack of PPE — personal protective equipment.
Montefiore nurse: “We have a lot of angry nurses. Everybody is frustrated. Of course, people come off at the end of the shift, they’re crying because they don’t know what they’re taking home potentially to their families. They don’t know what they’re coming into the next day. We’re seeing a massive amount of sick patients, a massive amount of patients that are just dying because of this illness. And like I said, at the end of the day, we’re not protected.”
One 28-year-old doctor at Thursday’s protest said she heads to work each day feeling like a “sheep going to slaughter.”
